Not sure when it happened, but I fell in love with lists. I am Thankful for lists.
All kinds. Printable, written, embedded, moleskine, post-its, numbered, unordered, digital, iPhone apps. All.
Fortunately, I work with tons of other people who share this passion and a few have contributed to my addiction.
- Ed‘ loves him some numbered lists. He even wrote about lists and communication
- JMO‘ taught me about Evernote and how to make lists from just about anywhere
- Before that, I used RememberTheMilk and ToDOist.
- Brandi‘ LOVES Twitter lists and I hope to make it on one of her lists someday.
- If I keep going, the whole office will want a list. Of their own.
Most of my day is consumed with lists. Making them, marking things off, adding to the lists. I use GTD as a general practice. Thanks David Allen for your workflow process in addition to helping me to control my lists. Goodness knows, they could get out of hand and I would have lists of lists.
I love lists as visual information, but sometimes they can be chronological:
- 1992. First played with Internet
- 1995. Graduated Architecture School
- 1998. Tried Sushi for the first time
- 2001. Celebrated Millennium. Again.
- 2003. Bought a bike
- 2005. Walked 60 miles in 3 Days
- 2007. Took a random train to Rabat
- 2009. Listened to Vint Cerf describe future of Internet, Thanks Schipul.
The list can be random (like above), completions, trends, or things to do like Gwen Bell’s Life List. We all love shopping lists, packing lists and I even make checklists for emergencies. I love marking things off my list as much as making new lists.
I can remember specific events and life decisions sometimes based on a pros and cons list. I am not sure they ever swayed a major decision, but they brought resolve and clarity to something that often drowned in possibilities. Thank you. I made a list of things I wanted in a life partner, things to take when I left town for a Hurricane, things to say when I wanted to thank my mom during on our last conversation and things to do this Saturday morning. If I don’t get everything done in a list, or the list changes? No worries. Sometimes it is just as fun to throw the list out the window and just go.
I hope I never run out of lists of awesome things to do.
write blog post about thankfulness of lists. Done.
Tell me your favorite list tool, gadget or hack.
There are few things more gratifying than crossing an item off of a to do list. Or making a fresh new list and suddenly feeling like you can conquer the world because you've got it written down.
Right now I'm working through the Day Zero Project (dayzero.com) – it's a list of 101 tasks to do in 1001 days. It took me about 2 weeks to get my list perfect (qcait.com/101in1001). I'm obsessed and I can't wait to have everything crossed off!
I don't know if I'm thankful for lists but I think they are under appreciated and underused. I can't figure out why there's not a killer app that makes checklists easy. They are easy on a scrap of paper, why aren't they easy on the web. I use Nozbe http://www.nozbe.com/ for GTD lists but, I still think the potential for lists is much, much greater. Every practice, every policy, every task, has a requisite checklist. Business workflow (BPM) and checklists go hand-in-hand.
Maybe you will help with this wiki mindmap http://www.mindmeister.com/35081576/checklists. Please feel free to contribute.
http://www.mindmeister.com/35081576/checklists
Mike, Thanks for the ideas. Poor lists, used but definitely under appreciated.
Thanks for reminding me of http://www.mindmeister.com I haven't used it in some time, and I am always inspired when I map things out. Great use to understand lists. I appreciate the thought in the mind map and will try and add a few ideas. Edit as needed.